Fante Confederacy - Fall of The Confederacy

Fall of The Confederacy

The long fighting around Elmina soon began to drain the resources of the state. It proved unable to collect much of the poll tax, and the British refused to allow the Confederacy to tax lucrative trade in the region. For a time the Ghartey brothers funded the state out-of-pocket, but soon the Confederacy was all but broke. Moreover the fighting with the Dutch and its allies had left the northern part of the Confederacy, on the border with the Ashanti, undefended and these regions felt the Confederation was failing to provided the needed protection.

British reaction to the Confederacy was mixed originally the British had little interest in directly administering the region themselves and some felt a self-governing European style state was a positive development. More British representatives in the region and in London saw the Confederacy as a dangerous precedent that was anti-British and doomed to failure. The Dutch, while winning militarily against the Fante, could little afford to fight a war in West Africa and decided to abandon the entire Gold Coast. The British, now in control of the entire region, approached the leaders of the Confederation and offered them money and to defend them against the Ashanti if the Fante acquiesced to being annexed to the Gold Coast this was done and the Confederation ceased to exist in 1873.